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The new edition of this authoritative introduction to the philosophy of technology includes recent developments in the subject, while retaining the range and depth of its selection of seminal contributions and its much-admired editorial commentary.

Remains the most comprehensive anthology on the philosophy of technology available

Includes editors’ insightful section introductions and critical summaries for each selection

Revised and updated to reflect the latest developments in the field

Combines difficult to find seminal essays with a judicious selection of contemporary material

Examines the relationship between technology and the understanding of the nature of science that underlies technology studies

Robert C. Scharff is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of Comte After Positivism (1995; 2002) and the former editor of Continental Philosophy Review (1995-2005). He publishes on 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy (especially Dilthey, Heidegger, and the hermeneutics of science), the history of positivism (especially Comte and Mill, and the connection between classical positivism and recent analytic philosophy), and the philosophy of technology. He is currently finishing a book manuscript, “How History Matters to Philosophy” and a collection of essays on Heidegger and technology, and editing a Blackwell Guidebook Series volume on Heidegger’s Being and Time.

Val Dusek is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. His research focuses on the history and philosophy of science and technology, with a particular interest in the social factors influencing scientific and technological development. He has written on non-mainstream philosophical influences (Asiatic, hermetic, romantic) on the history of electro-magnetic theory. His numerous publications include Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) and co-editorship of the first edition of this volume.

Source Acknowledgments ix

Introduction to the Second Edition xiii

Part I The Historical Background 1

Introduction 3

1 On Dialectic and “Technē” 9Plato

2 On “Technē” and “Epistēmē” 19Aristotle

3 The Greek Concepts of “Nature” and “Technique” 25Wolfgang Schadewaldt

4 On the Idols, the Scientific Study of Nature, and the Reformation of Education 33Francis Bacon

5 Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View 47Immanuel Kant

6 The Nature and Importance of the Positive Philosophy 54Auguste Comte

7 On the Sciences and Arts 68Jean-Jacques Rousseau

8 Capitalism and the Modern Labor Process 74Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels